One of the more interesting finds we had up in Kuranda was what appears to be a crash site of an old plane in the rainforest.
This is Geronimo, a US Air Force plane that began service in 1942 before being used as a passenger airline for Trans-Australia Airlines (a part of Qantas) in 1946 under the name Cunningham. It was then used in the movie ‘Sky pirates’ and went under the name Miss Fortune in 1984, the plot of the movie having the plane crash on the Barrier Reef. After the film the shell of the craft was given to the town.
What a life it has had, eh?
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Dreamtime refers to the religion/belief system of aboriginal people. I’m only now looking it up now so I won’t even attempt to describe what this consists of exactly. Maybe when I understand it a little better.
I tried to see who the artist was by googling ‘Wiradjuri’ however I’m not sure if this is the artist or referring to a specific tribe. It is dated 2003 after the word so thought it was the artist however looking it up seems to be an aboriginal tribe.
And with that I clearly have a lot to learn regarding aboriginal culture…
Thank you again to all my followers and regular readers, and hello to you if you are new to my blog!
New to this site? Click here to visit my About My Blog section
Want to keep up with my travels? Click here for my Travel Diaryor follow me over on Instagram
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It’s a weird time. No hotel room to go back to after noon, and you cannot commit to too much as you know you need to make it to the airport. Our flight to Brisbane isn’t until 8.20pm, so we have a lot of time to kill.
Thankfully though, the hotel kindly gave us tickets to see Cairns Taipans vs Melbourne United in the National Basketball League at 4pm, which will keep us occupied for a while. Something different too.
But this time after check out is always a little sad, the trip coming to an end and every little walk along the coast and every cold drink at the bar is the last here. Maybe the last on this trip, maybe the last ever. But this is more motivation than ever to try to live a life that allows for as many of these trips as possible, as we won’t be around to see the world forever.
If we can live a life that sees us going to new places, trying new foods, speaking to new and interesting people, then life is good.
Thank you again to all my followers and regular readers, and hello to you if you are new to my blog!
New to this site? Click here to visit my About My Blog section
Want to keep up with my travels? Click here for my Travel Diaryor follow me over on Instagram
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This recent experience was my mum’s idea, as my sister and I had no idea about this Hogwarts looking train ride up into the Cairns mountains. But what a shout it was and despite the weather we had a great afternoon.
It all started aboard this 9.30am Cairns to Karunda line, the station being just a couple minutes taxi from the hotel. The station is very small so finding was train was easy.
Karunda is a mountain village near Cairns, and getting the Karunda Scenic Railway to the village takes roughly 1 hour 45 minutes. Being as scenic as it is means that this train ride is a part of the experience and boredom is not something you will experience on route.
The railway rises to 328m above sea level, and during the climb goes through 15 tunnels, over 37 bridges and alongside some stunning waterfalls. This line is considered an incredible feat of engineering, with many men perishing during its construction between 1882-1891. Very sad and a reminder that when we start to hate our jobs, it could be much, much harder.
The heights were pretty scary, however the ride was fairly smooth and despite being an old railway we didn’t feel unsafe or in any danger.
Say cheese!
You can see below people were doing the exact same thing as us, sticking their arms through the bars and getting some great unobstructed shots of the scenery. Due to the slow ride and being able to see quite far ahead there wasn’t really a risk of injury.
The weather was great. The clouds added to the dramatic shots and rain wasn’t enough to limit the views. If anything it added to them and slowly entering the clouds showed us how high we were.
This is the Baron Falls Lookout, and you can see why it is visited by thousands of people every year. The train stops here for ten minutes and allows for some great photo opportunities and time to take in one of North Queensland’s greatest waterfalls. What a view!
Eventually we made it to the village. We were greeted by this rather nice looking pub/hotel and stopped for a drink on the way back. The village starts here and is full of some lovely shops, bars and restaurants. It really is cool to walk through a village in a rainforest.
And there you have it, Karunda Village. I would highly recommend this if you are ever in Cairns, like Green Island yesterday it is only a half day your which means you can plan other things on the evening. Also, we recommend Gold Class back, we didn’t do the Skyrail back which is the cable car ride back down, instead we paid a little more for our own upgraded cabin, wine and cheese to accompany us on the way down. And it went down well!
So today we have been blessed with some fantastic weather all day long. It turns out our decision to do a short half-day trip to Green Island was a good one as the conditions were perfect to see the reef and fish living around it. We made our way to the boat terminal, (you can see how close it is to our hotel below), departed at 11am and arrived 45 minutes later.
The weather is scorching. No clouds were around to give shade so we hid in a cafe until it was time to board. What I remember from my last trip out was that being at sea from 9-5 is a long time in the unforgiving far north Queensland sunshine, so a slightly shorter trip wasn’t really an issue. The shorter journey to Green Island meant we didn’t really spend too much time at sea getting to and from the reef.
The Reef Rocket
Cairns looking great from here! As the city disappeared onto the horizon, our little island emerged. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but it did seem very small! Not that I was complaining, my last reef trip consisted of no land whatsover, so having somewhere that I was able to walk around on without bobbing up and down like a cork was welcomed.
That colour though!
Immediately upon looking down we saw some impressive sized schools of fish of all kinds. That and a small reef shark minding it’s own business amongst the snorkelers. Humans and animals seem to get along pretty well here. Now because this was a short trip we only spent an hour on the island to have lunch and walking through it actually makes it seem bigger than I originally assumed. I didn’t take any photos (why the hell didn’t I?!) but there is a walkway that takes you from one side of the island to the other and in the middle is a resort with a couple of restaurants, bars and a pool for guests of Green Island. We had lunch fairly hurried as we didn’t want to miss the glass bottom boat ride and headed back out to the boats.
Oh I needed to save my terrible iPhone battery. That is why.
The boat was a different one to the one we got here, it was a long boat and people sit facing each other with the glass running down the length of the boat. Due to the shallow reef the views were clear and fish aplenty.
How cool is that? We also saw a turtle which was perfect timing as a man asked the driver if there was the possibility. His response was ‘Yes! Right there!’.
He surfaced a couple of times away from the boat before submerging and swimming off for good.
Now this was the perfect little day as we were actually going to do a popular train ride and realised we had missed the train! So with the weather being perfect and not wanting it to go to waste we looked at short trips out to the reef and the few hours at sea actually felt a lot longer. But in a good way, 11-4pm means there was no time for sea sickness and we have enough energy to do something tonight. Tomorrow we will do the Kuranda Train ride in hopefully decent weather. But I don’t mind too much because if I wanted any day to be great, it was a day at the reef.
More info on the Big Cat Green Island Reef Cruises on their website here.
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Thank you again to all my followers and regular readers, and hello to you if you are new to my blog!
New to this site? Click here to visit my About My Blog section
Want to keep up with my travels? Click here for my Travel Diaryor follow me over on Instagram
Want to introduce yourself and your blog and discover new ones? Click here for my meet and greet page.
I was here pretty much a year ago with friends, and coming back to this city has reminded me of some very fun memories. Last time was different however, we were four friends staying in Gilligans Hostel so it was mainly sunbathing and alcohol consumption. And an incredible Great Barrier Reef trip, even if I was a little hungover. One of the best experiences in Australia so far.
We are at the Pullman this time, a five star hotel and a million miles away from hostel living. Yesterday I spent a lot of time just watching the weather change from glorious sunshine to tropical storms.
From this…
The skies turned into this…
And then the mountains and oceans dissapeared…
And a couple hours later it started to clear up, just in time for the cruise leaving the dock at sunset.
This was yesterday, and thankfully the weather is holding up and it’s looking pretty nice for our trip to Green Island in an hour. We are just doing a quick half day trip at the reef today but hopefully that’s enough to get some decent shots and see a few creatures.
It’s 6.29am and I’m at Sydney’s Kingford Smith Airport about to fly up to Cairns for my second leg of the holiday with family. After a 4.30am wake up and a terrible nights sleep, I’m ready for my next bed.
It looks like a great day to be flying out however as Cairns has had some pretty rough weather recently we will see what we fly into. Hopefully we get lucky up there. We have four days to enjoy in Cairns and then back to Brisbane, I have a few days off work to enjoy showing family around Queensland’s capital and I’ll leave Brisbane on the 1st March to continue down the country.
But one step at a time, and the next step is a chilled spell in Cairns.
I’m about to board, see you there!
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Thank you again to all my followers and regular readers, and hello to you if you are new to my blog!
New to this site? Click here to visit my About My Blog section
Want to keep up with my travels? Click here for my Travel Diaryor follow me over on Instagram
Want to introduce yourself and your blog and discover new ones? Click here for my meet and greet page.
I wanted to repost my beautiful flight from Cairns to Sydney recently, these four images show the journey from Queensland to New South Wales and what an Australian summer tends to be like. Beautiful clear waters and blue skies, all before a storm hits and brings a bit of cool. And a double rainbow…
And back in the UK, the ‘Beast from the East’ has arrived.
This is a winter storm that has affected much of the UK and brought some pretty impressive snow drifts. This shot was taken from the Crook Police Facebook page, Crook being a town very close to where I am from.
Now it is very hard to tell the magnitude of the snow problem in the UK, as we are simply unable to deal with winter when snow hits. A couple inches of snow causes chaos, anything more is apocalyptic. Then again, if this is your view upon opening your front door, then maybe you do have an excuse to call work telling them you will be a few hours late…
This photo was taken by the Buckle family in Cumbria, I found the story on the news site Metro. Image from North News & Pictures. This sight would terrify me, especially in an isolated area. Shivers.
I seem to miss the really bad winter storms that we get every few years or so. The last really bad winter I heard about in the UK was when I was living in Texas, not that their winter was kind to me, I remember walking over frozen swimming pools. But since then, each and every UK winter has had a sting in the tail, but not to this extent.
Now I am in Sydney, the same thing has happened. Maybe I am a curse? Like the mythical mothman, instead I am not feared when I am seen but feared when I depart the UK over winter. That is a sign that everyone needs to stock up on bread and fire logs.
How bad do your winters get? Is your country able to deal with snowstorms? You may have one now, typing away ferociously to stay warm. Let me know!
So I have been a little absent from WordPress the past week or so for the reasons explained here, not that this has been a time of procrastination but rather to the contrary. That being said as much as I have had fun, I am pleased to be able to relax in my own bed.
This was the moment I realised I was on holiday.
I found Cairns- much smaller than Sydney- to be very sleepy in comparison. Surrounded by beautiful coastlines, dense rain-forest and low rise buildings. It also looked remarkably grid like compared to Sydney’s winding streets and this made it fairly easy to navigate. The noise from the busy Sydney traffic was replaced by calm but for the occasional noise from a helicopter tour.
This was until we reached the hostel. Don’t get me wrong, this is a fantastic hostel and one of the main reasons I had such a great experience in Cairns was down to the accommodation. I want to get that out there first, and I liked it so much that here is the link to Gilligans. That is of course only if you like hostel living. The perks of this place are that you are located close to what the city has to offer, the hostel itself has a travel agent that helps organise your tours to the Great Barrier Reef and it has a ‘Workers Wanted’ desk that assists on helping backpackers that want to find rural work to get their second year visa. Other perks include $11 jugs of beer, $5 dinners every night (I thought these were great value) and nightly entertainment. During the day, the hostel has a good vibe. Not too busy, not too crazy. By nightfall, expect what you would expect from a nightclub. What would you expect from a hostel? I haven’t stayed in many, however I am sure this is up there with the best I will stay in.
We had an upgrade to a 6-bed dorm, great considering we had four in our group.
Views were decent. We watched the Crystal Serenity dock one day and one of the bridge commanders actually stayed with us for a night in one of the two spare beds. Me and a friend then decided his night off would be spent telling us all about ships and life on the waters, although he seemed to enjoy the conversation. It is nice to see the passion some people show in their roles.
Views above. $11 Jugs and $5 dinners below.
On the second morning myself and my friend Victoria arranged to do the Great Barrier Reef. It would be silly if we didn’t of course, and was the one thing we had on our list. It is very high on the bucket list too, as it is for many people. One thing we agreed on was that we would only snorkel, as we feel a little uneasy diving. Jumping into water with a heavy load makes me feel as uneasy as we did sailing with a hangover in 35c heat.
This of course was justified when looking at the views of the slowly fading landscape.
Now this trip was amazing. For $170 per person, we sailed at 8am and arrived back on dry land at 5pm. This included a fantastic lunch, a great team of professionals and a $10 tab that I decided to use on a beer and a snack. The real shame was that both of us felt a little too queasy to go to town on the chicken carbonara and veggie curry, but we gave it our best shot. The quality of the food meant we ate a plate and a half even though our bodies threatened to throw it back up anytime. This was after our first swim though, which was amazing. They took us to two separate reefs, one that they said was the best and was decided upon due to the great conditions. Our conditions were better than they have been for a long time according to staff, and the images really do back this up.
Oooh, look at all the floaty people…
The first reef, 20 meters deep, plenty of coral.
The second reef, nothing but darkness looking down. This was a longer swim to the coral, surrounded by jellyfish whilst protected by a stinger suit. After a good few minutes swim, the water became much more shallow. Swimming back was amazing when looking at how the coral suddenly ends at a cliff face and plummets into a dark abyss. I couldn’t help but imagine a shark swimming upwards from the darkness. Hopefully I will obtain the GoPro underwater shots from my friend soon to show you. Part Two perhaps coming soon?
As much as I enjoyed the trip and the incredible sights underwater, it was great to step foot on dry land again. I won’t forget the Nemo’s, the bright blue starfish, the huge coral and the great people that were alongside us. Some found baby sharks and turtles, and for that I will be forever jealous.
The following day, signs for a full english breakfast were a welcome sight.
This spider scared the crap out of me.
This tree (or trees?) caught my attention.
And this drunk person is me. You can only have so many $11 jugs before gazing at a storm and wondering how hard lightning would have to strike before you gain a superpower.
The weather remained fairly stormy after this, not that I cared after having such great weather at the reef. If anything it added to the images.
Birds nesting above, a plane seemingly on fire upon boarding below.
Those views! Dream islands and double rainbows.
I didn’t think this would happen, but I felt upset arriving back ‘home’. Not that Sydney is my home, however it is for the time being. I realised I was going back to work and back to my current normality, recovering from sunburn and bank overdrafts. It is funny that this still happens on a working holiday visa.
I loved Cairns and I hope to go back. Great memories with great people, an unforgettable experience at the Great Barrier Reef that so many people have sitting at the top of their bucket lists. Don’t worry, I am trying to obtain the images underwater from my friend although we are having technical issues. Until then, I hope that you enjoyed the ones above the surface.
Do Australian summer storms always look this good? Obviously my iphone camera couldn’t truly capture the moment, but I gave it my best shot. It is safe to say- and it probably seems apparent to my regular readers- that I love a good storm.
I was planning to blog everyday whilst on holiday, that obviously wasn’t the case and I am sorry for that. One of the main reasons was that I struggled to connect to WiFi and I was often soaking wet from the Great Barrier Reef, swimming pools or spilled beers. I did have an amazing time and I have very much looked forward to telling you all about it. New blog post for the Travel Diary tomorrow.
As it has been a few days since I last posted, I have realised how long it takes to respond to comments and look at my notifications. Not that I would change that for the world, however it concerns me as I don’t want to miss some of your messages. It made me think of how busy I will be in the next couple of weeks relocating away from Sydney (which is sad times indeed) and won’t have as much time to blog although I will.
So I was wondering what you all thought about this. Do you like my daily updates, or prefer a post every three days or so which would allow me time to respond to comments and maybe create one larger post each time. I enjoy daily posts, and it keeps me on my toes. But once every 3-4 days may also be great if I can keep my audience interested and create something a little greater perhaps whilst keeping up with comments.
What did you think of the storm, and what are your thoughts on my update frequencies? Daily and short or a little less frequent and longer?
Many thanks in advance, and I will see you tomorrow.
One Chance to See the World 